Creative Writing: the art, design and craft of writing

The following course list is a provisional guide to the workshops we expect to run. Each will be of two-and-a-half hours running on a Monday night from 6pm. 

Creative Writing: The Art, Design and Craft of Writing aims to help you  to the next stage of your writing development. We want everyone to take a major step towards their own goals, whether these be personal, professional or world-conquering.

The plan is to learn from a presentation of cross-genre workshops, so that short-story writers can learn from poets, poets from dramatists, novelists from screen writers. Each session blends interactive workshops with advice and tuition along with the opportunity to present work to other writers and engage with constructive feedback.

Our ethos throughout is that writing is both an art and a craft and that, through an understanding of how you design your work, you can improve significantly in how you present creative ideas for maximum impact.

There's also plenty of chance to just let the creative urge lead you onward. 

Provisional course sessions 

Welcome: Introductions and aspirations

We ease ourselves into the group, allowing everyone to feel comfortable about their own writing and maybe getting to hear from the group as a whole. We'll look at some of the driving forces of good short fiction, based on our own knowledge of character both in the real and fictional worlds. Why do we write? What do we write? How are we hoping to improve?  How can our group help each other...? 

Giving and getting feedback - self-critique and decision making

Poet and masterclass tutor Clare Best introduces the principals of successful critical judgement both for your own work and that of others. Who is the audience? What is this work trying to achieve? How do I test the work for flaws? What's the difference between useful revision and tinkering? When do I stop?

Narrative structure and development

What makes story? How do we engage an audience? How do we use dilemma and conflict? Where to start and finish? How do scenes develop? How clear is my narrative thread? Can I pitch my idea economically? - we work at some of the nuts and bolts of successful fiction.

Writing short fiction for competitions

For many writers the best opportunity for an audience outside their family and friends is on the competition circuit. Our workshop is led by a successful competition writer and looks at the "hooks" and character details that will appeal to judges and what approaches have worked for others.  

Poet Clare Best discusses how poetry works and how the writers of other genres can learn from the poetic process. Who is speaking and how? How can description show underlying purpose? The workshop deals with tensions at both word and sentence level

Freeing the imagination

While much of the course is about bolstering your writing through knowledge of craft and technique, in this workshop Gilly Smith encourages the group to let go and allow the imagination to seek its own targets. She uses automatic writing and free association to build new directions for your work. 

Writing for the screen

Tight narrative development and a ruthless "show not tell" characterise the film-writer's craft, offering lessons in conciseness for any author or poet. 

Theatre scripts and the live audience

A visiting playwright helps us understand how to engage with an audience and develop living, interesting dialogue.

Working for a publisher, self-publishing and publicising

A guest from the professional publishing world talks on the publishing process and ways we can take steps towards our publishing goals. Also a chance to review the skills we've learnt so far and recognise what future steps we might take.

And relax... An open-invite celebration of the writing done.

All the hard work pays off! We can read our work produced on the course. Students are also entitled to submit to the university's yearbook of creative writing, which includes the work of full time students in literature. 

The following staff are among those who have taught on our various writing progammes, some of whom will be teaching on the next instance of the course.

Jess Moriarty

Creative writing course developer

Jess is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton where she has won a Teacher Excellence Award for her innovative writing classes.  In 2007 she co-founded www.workwritelive.com, an initiative that uses creative exercises to boost confidence and motivation with the writing process.  The feedback for her workshops and writing retreats has been hugely positive and Jess has won an Innovation Award for her work in this area. Jess was interviewed by The Times Higher and highlighted in The Times newspaper for her achievements and is currently working on her doctorate which uses autobiography to explore highs and lows with the academic writing process and explores ways to enhance writing development within Higher Education.  She is also writing an anthology of poetry that focuses on identity and development

Dr Michael Wilson

Michael followed an Oxford doctorate in English Literature with twelve years of teaching, recently working with the University of Brighton, where he has taught Victorian literature, literary theory and creative writing and runs workshops on writing for the web. In 2010 his story 'Almost Steven Gerrard' won the gold medal at the CCI creative writing olympiad. He spoke on poetry and voice at a recent creative critical conference and will present soon on computer-enabled fiction He has a special interest in narrative and style and is pursuing practice-led research in narrative devices. 

Clare Best

Clare is a poet, writer and creative writing lecturer and also has a background in fine bookbinding and publishing. Her poems are widely published in magazines and journals. Treasure Ground, published in January 2010 by HappenStance, collects poems resulting from her innovative Arts Council residency on an organic farm in Lincolnshire. Her first full collection, Excisions, which appeared from Waterloo Press in 2011, includes the renowned autobiographical sequence, Self-portrait without Breasts. Clare has a special interest in life narratives and is writing a prose memoir. She has worked with many different groups of writers including life prisoners at HMP Shepton Mallet and students at Brighton, Kent and Sussex universities. She is also an Associate Lecturer for the Open University.

Sarah Hutchings

Sarah regularly writes for two comedy sketch shows, The Treason Show (Brighton) and The News Revue (London). Her radio play, Cormorant, which she wrote with writing partner, Hil Cooke, is currently in production with the Wireless Theatre company. Sarah works for QueenSpark Books as its marketing and readership manager and has extensive knowledge of the publishing process.

Linda McVeigh

Linda is a writer with considerable success in competitions, including the Charleston shorts prize and the Asham Writing Prize. She teaches creative writing for the Faculty of Arts alongside her work within the research administration team at the Faculty of Education and Sport. 

Julie Everton

Julie’s media career started out when she adapted her own short story as a screenplay and was selected to be part of the BBC’s New Writers for Drama Series. Her CV includes TV commissions and working as a feature film script editor. She has taught creative writing for fifteen years. 

Julie was the winner of Royal Court Young Writers Festival 1991 and has had plays produced at the Chelsea Centre Theatre, Soho Theatre, and for a regional touring theatre company, Angels on Bicycles. She has also written for BBC Radio Four’s First Person. Julie was trained by the UK Film Council to deliver their Introduction to Screenwriting, which she has presented for the last five years. 

Robert Greens

Rob's prize-winning first short film 'Age Concern' also gained him a place on the BBC's New Talent programme. Alongside his own film-making, he now works in Media Studies at the University of Brighton, teaching screen-writing and radio script writing on courses in broadcast media.

New Writing South

New Writing South aims to create an environment in the south in which creative writers and new writing can flourish. We do this by developing and nurturing writers and by encouraging a thriving new writing economy in our region.They offer writers’ development, encouragement, resources and opportunities to make new contacts. They also programme numerous events that aim to enhance skills, stretch creativity and broker partnerships with those who produce and publish work. http://www.newwritingsouth.com

QueenSpark Books

QueenSpark Books are a local community publisher with extensive experience gained over 36 years. Their work has received wide praise and recognition which has earned them financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund. 

Their books tell the stories of Brighton & Hove’s lesser-heard voices. They have produced over 90 titles ranging from first-person accounts of life during the World Wars, to collections of creative writing and histories of marginalised communities. The collection can be viewed at their website where you will also find a breadth of information and resources.

To make an application for the creative writing course, visit our online booking site.